


Foedere et Religione Tenemur

by akathecentimetre



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Gen, The Good Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 06:59:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1183269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akathecentimetre/pseuds/akathecentimetre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Marsac sizes up his friends and enemies; Richelieu despairs at the deficiencies of military men; the Duchess offers Athos something he didn’t know he wanted; and Aramis is given solace. Episode 4 reaction-fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foedere et Religione Tenemur

**I.**

His mind has not forgotten what sort of men these are, not forgotten what he himself once was, even after years of his body’s letting it slip. Marsac can no longer rise to his feet in anger as fast as Athos does, nor does he have the strength to elude Porthos’s iron grip on his arm or even counter that little bastard d’Artagnan’s throw as he defends his glorified housekeeper; but he still has eyes, and there is something at the base of his skull which knows his instincts are still as good as theirs, his observations as cutting to the quick.

He knows, for instance, that d’Artagnan may be a patsy, a farm boy, and that he would be easily misled by the profession of honorable intentions, but that to step a single inch over whatever strange ethical lines are in his head would bring Marsac nothing but defeat.

He knows that it sickens Athos to be near him – not to be in his presence, that is, but to be party to the creeping betrayal of everything he has come to hold dear. His disapproval is deadly, steel-willed, ever more silent.

He knows that Porthos will kill him with two fingers should Aramis come to harm. There is more to him, of course, but the single-mindedness the big musketeer applies to each day that they are on this ludicrous hunt drives home this one point with utter certainty.

He knows that he cannot count on Aramis. But he must, and he will, because as surely as he knows these men, he knows himself, and he knows he cannot continue alone.

He will use his knowledge for as far as it can take him. When it has been exhausted, there will be but one option left.

**II.**

Richelieu has never had much time to spare for military men.

He knows their uses, of course, and they are legion, but he often finds their deficiencies far outweigh them. He frequently has harsh words for Treville on the subject, even enjoys tossing insults at the man due to his knowledge that the Captain will not allow himself to feel the barbs of a man who has never even fought a duel, nor appreciated the heft of a sword hilt or pistol butt in his hand. It is one of the few things Richelieu likes about the man (or rather that he finds of service, for he _likes_ nothing about anyone who is a constant and irremovable inconvenience), that he will stand toe to toe with Richelieu when he can and has the wherewithal to prove himself useful. He supposes that that forthrightness, that courage, is something one could possibly commend about a military man.

But God above, he is unashamed to realize that he is flabbergasted, genuinely dismayed, when he sees the Duke unsheathe his sword in the council chamber, and the musketeer disrobing, handing his uniform and pistol into the care of one of the equally confused royal pages. If he were not truly horrified at the idea that these men, these _idiotic_ men, are about to squabble like dogs over the result of months and years of careful planning and persuasion and political horsetrading, he might be able to spare a thought for the exquisitely gross humor of the situation, of the petty triumph of the sword over the velvet glove.

In the event, it is all he can do not to blaspheme in Treville’s ear, to curse him for being the leader, the personification, of all that is destructive about the baser instincts of overgrown children. “Will your man win?”

Treville’s expression, damn him, is as calm as the surface of a millpond. “Athos is the best swordsman in the regiment.”

As if that is an answer suited to this disaster. Richelieu takes up his place next to the king to observe, wishing he could access the will of God for a few moments, to personally beg Him to deliver him from fools.

It does not surprise him that the Duke proves himself to be a cheat and a bully; that he resorts to using a second weapon to gain an advantage against the superior fighter, that he uses the significant bulk of his body to fling Treville’s man at Richelieu’s feet. He expects nothing less, nor more, of a soldier gone to seed.

He is surprised, however, by the amount of pleasure he draws from the awareness he sees in the musketeer – _yes, Athos, Treville’s man, Milady’s business_ , he reminds himself – of the implications of his fight. He understands the theatre of allowing the Duke to force him back at first, of the visible calculation on his face as he assesses the Savoyard’s ability before he strikes back – and, in a piece of performance Richelieu himself would have been proud of, the final touch of the sword skittering into a corner, the pure drama of the Duke lying bloodied at Louis’ feet. At some other time, perhaps, he might call Athos to his office, congratulate him with the rarest of sincerities. (The fury he can see in Treville’s pitbull body is but a momentary distraction; he far prefers this outcome to any that admits any honor for the Duke.)

He steps back onto the stage with no hesitation, for his cue was perfect. “Shall we say nine o’clock in the morning?”

Wars have ever been fought by men acting on behalf of another’s politics. Later, after the treaty is signed (for it will be signed, of this he is now perfectly certain), Richelieu promises himself that he will spend an hour or two contemplating – and perhaps even complimenting – the union of the two spheres, of the two types of men, in more intimate and far more important moments than on a battlefield.

He looks forward to drawing new conclusions on the subject.

**III.**

Athos finds it very easy to wait in the darkness of the prison alcove with the Duchess, despite the danger striding, then standing, then shouting mere paces from them. Her stillness matches his own, and radiates a calm which, though he is sure she is far more dangerous and powerful than he will ever know, leaves him with no trace of anxiety that they will fail in their mission. It is a rare thing, this quiet, to find in anyone, let alone such a one as she.

Once the Duke – her husband, he has to remind himself – storms away and they are straggling out of the broken back door, lines of spent adrenaline showing in the slump of d’Artagnan and Porthos’s shoulders, he feels life ( _Aramis has been missing for hours_ ) intrude again, with all of its demand and complication. The drink he was hastily denied at the barracks lingers at the edges of his thought.

“I know you, I believe,” Christine Marie says quietly as he accompanies her to the side of her horse, ready to have her step into his hands and mount. “Your father presented you to the court before I married.”

“Your Grace has a good memory,” he answers, merely stating the obvious for what, it is clear, she is (spy, traitor, patriot, he cares not). His momentary spark of dull exhaustion at the recognition is only just held in check by his certainty of her discretion.

“It is something of a fall, is it not,” the Duchess continues, “though I suppose one could not do better than to be amongst these men.” Nothing of what she says is a question.

“Indeed,” Athos says, with a bow of his head. He does not lift it again until she has put one small foot into his gloved palms, and he has pushed upwards hard enough for her to settle in the saddle. She is very light.

“If these demons you are fleeing should ever cause you to want to leave France, _mon Comte_ ,” she murmurs, “write to me. There is always a place – safe, or otherwise – for men such as you.”

He looks up at her sharply, but she has settled her deep hood back over her face, and digs her heels into her horse’s sides before he can formulate anything approaching a protest.

Or, indeed, approaching thanks.

**IV.**

After leaving the graveyard Aramis is alone in his apartement for all of six minutes before Porthos knocks. It is a very familiar knock, the sound of dense knuckles and force in the arm, and it tethers Aramis briefly back into the world from where he sits, boneless and stiff all at once, in a chair next to the window.

Porthos holds up a bottle of wine – Bordeaux, probably several years old, certainly expensive – with a grin playing at the edge of his lips when Aramis opens the door. “Athos sends his best.”

“A compliment indeed, that he should give it up,” Aramis rasps as he lets Porthos in and re-locks the door. His voice tears like sackcloth, syllable by syllable, from his throat. “You didn’t have to come.”

All he gets in response to that is a raised eyebrow, and the production from Porthos’s voluminous pockets of two chipped glasses. Aramis sighs, rubs his hands over his face. “Forgive me. I’m not myself.”

“Of course you aren’t,” Porthos says gruffly, shoving a now full glass into Aramis’s hand. “And if you apologize to me again for anything, ever, I’ll put you into a grave of your own.”

Aramis nods, sits back down in his chair, too tired to be outraged that Porthos is – quite rightly – using his own grief against him. “So. What shall we talk about?”

“Nothing,” Porthos says, sitting down in the other chair and pulling it up to Aramis’s small table, rummaging again in his pockets as he does so. His hat is tossed onto the hook on the back of the door, covering Aramis’s where it hangs damp and dented. “I’m going to sit here and play cards. You’re going to sit there and work on remembering yourself.”

Aramis smiles as Porthos lays out the wrinkled deck, stacking queens on top of kings, laying aside the knaves. “Is that all?”

Porthos shrugs, his eyes still on the cards. “I’ll refill our glasses until the bottle’s empty. Might build up the fire every couple of hours or so. Teach myself a few new tricks. Plenty to keep myself busy with.”

Aramis allows himself to slouch a few inches down into his chair. It’s uncomfortable, but with the first glass of wine – which he doesn’t remember drinking – hitting his liver and the exhaustion that was Marsac only very slowly lifting from his bones, he doesn’t feel capable of getting up and going to his unkempt bed. “Watch out for the landlady. She’s a terror.”

“I still have the scars from last time I met her,” Porthos growls, and flaps some sort of vaguely obscene gesture in Aramis’s direction. “Hush, now.”

Aramis sighs, falls asleep where he sits, and, mercifully, does not dream.

**FIN**

**Author's Note:**

> Random historical notes because I got curious about Savoy/Savoie and you can never have too much history: the Duke who appeared in the show would have been Victor Amadeus I, who was Duke from 1630 to his death in 1637 and married Christine Marie of France (Louis XIII’s sister) in 1619. The show was creatively inaccurate, however, in having their son Louis Amadeus be with them on their trip – he sadly died at the age of 6 in 1628. They did have a living 1-year-old daughter, Louise Christine, in 1630, and over the course of their marriage had 8 children in total (including a stillborn son; only four lived to see adulthood). Christine Marie of France spent many years as Regent of Savoy after her husband’s death and successfully led a war to re-unite warring factions of the family; she was de jure or de facto in charge of the Duchy from 1637 to her death in 1663. The title of this fic is what is believed to be the de-acronymized version of the House of Savoy's motto, FERT, meaning "We are bound by treaty and by religion."


End file.
